Rhetorical Analysis Of Letter From Birmingham Jail

A "Letter from the Birmingham Jail" (1963), by Martin Luther King Jr. was written in response to a letter published by Alabama clerics. This time he will respond with all his heart to this cynical oppression. In the course of the letter King makes extensive allusions to multiple philosophers, including Aquinas and Socrates. King's work has only one objective: the protection of civil disobedience as a form of protest that the Civil Rights Movement could continue in an unencumbered way despite this singularity of purpose, the complexity of the situation meant that it was "A Call for Unity" published by the eight clergymen. Immoral and immoral mentions drew the attention of the Minister through the letter, and were expressed by different points

used the rhetorical element of ethos to establish his credibility on the subject of racial discrimination and injustice. He begins the letter with "My dear fellow clergymen"(pg. 1). With these words, he is putting himself on the same level as the clerics, showing thus and making it clear that he is no less than them and that they are no better than him. Also, King says, "I have the honor of serving as President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates"(pg. 1). The point of this presentation is to establish your credibility as a member and citizen of the United States of America. He then goes on to say, "I am here because I have organizational ties here. But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here"(pg. 1). He is saying that he has real knowledge and foundations in the matter of injustice, not because the recipient of the white privilege, because he is well informed and aware of the subject. In this way he shows them that he has the intellectual capacity on this issue of injustice and discrimination equal or more than any other

then appeals to the rhetorical element of pathos by putting in view of them the trials that his people have had to go through and obviously of which whites are not victims. It is expressed in this way "when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim,"(pg. 3) and "when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters"(pg.3). In these expressions he uses a strong language as "vicious mobs" and parallelism as "lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim" he uses this language to convey what he had to live in own meat through the same or through relatives or friends. During the development of this paragraph using this type of grammatical and visual structure, the audience begins to feel what it would be like to be in King's position and feel the pain and problems he had to go through. In this part King captures the attention of the audience since its development is very emotive and strong thus arriving at the sensitivity of the reader. And it is exactly what King wanted, to get what they read captured the message as strong as it really is and so convinced that continue reading the letter to finally have a more detailed view of the outrageous facts that are happening and do not refuse to see waiting for a positive reaction to change this